MNnative
In the Brooder
- Jan 25, 2021
- 22
- 47
- 46
Yah I have heard of doing that. Just need to go pick some hardware cloth up. The lid for my bin more or less works that way too, just very small slats, but even the pre-pupae can fit through those slats so it works out. Just takes awhile.
Also I did try adding dry foods to help with drying it out, which helped some, but eventually I realized it was probably the combination of their waste and the undigestible material that was causing the real issue that wasn't likely to resolve itself, even if I get it dried out. Hence the going with the down and dirty method of manually rinsing and sorting. Though I think I'll just try using the lid to sort them and doing small scoops at a time. Last night, after a long day of sorting and dealing with poop/rotting smell most of the day, when I realized I still had one bin that needed to be cleaned I realized that the lid would work to filter them out. I was going with the whole bin, inverted over another tray, it was working but was slow going because the bin was quite full. I had added extra dry material earlier in the day, before realizing that a big part of the problem was probably the undigestible paper/wood based items, egg shells, and other such material, that probably just needed to be removed from the bin at this point.
Just curious, what do you do with the waste when you filter them out? And how often do you do that?
For the BSFL I was adding food, checking on them, documenting things, etc... daily when they were immature. At first they were in 4 separate bins. 1 was larger, but had two separate areas within it and the other two were quite a bit smaller. I knew as they matured they'd get much larger. When they arrived they were all in a pint sized takeout container that was quite full. I left about 1/4 of the BSFL in that container and added scraps. After about a week I realized that even when things were going well there was going to be a bit too much odor for my husband and kids to tolerate them being in the main part of our house (eventually) so I started thinking of how/where to move them. The main options were garage, our basement or the porch which although it is supposed to be 4 season porch, it is enclosed, and has a heat vent (all of which was done by prior owners of our home) it gets extremely cold (stays warmer than the garage but not by a lot). Our family room and my husband's work shop is in the basement, and honestly I was worried I'd forget about them down there, the garage is too cold so I decided to try the porch. At that point it was cold but not much below 30F most days so the porch was cool but not too cold. but over time I moved them into 2 as the main ones were doing pretty well. It got colder and I realized I needed to add insulation if I was going to keep them on the porch because it was getting so cold. As I experimented with insulation and realized that the larger bin did better since it could stay warm enough more easily, so I combined the 4 into 2 bins and kept a small amount separately to feed or bearded dragon out of each day. With the need for insulation, and combining into just 2 bins I finally had them staying warm enough but here was a bit of a moisture problem, especially in the smaller bin which and an open top. The problem was it needed to be covered in order to stay warm enough to keep them from going dormant. I figured out providing better ventilation to that smaller open bin. All was good for awhile so I went to checking them every few days. They were going inactive due to the cold, which also contributes to decay, odor, etc...so I was warming them up inside every few days. My larger bin, which was fine at first, was staying warm with a film of shipping insulation wrapped around it, even on the unheated porch. They were active and eating through stuff like crazy with minimal odor. Then it got quite a bit colder for almost a week. Then somehow the two bins flip flopped, the small one was doing fine, and the larger one got very stinky. Seemed dry enough and worms very active up top, but then dug down towards the bottom and realized there was a section that was getting too compact and too wet. And things have not quite leveled out since. But this colony size is pretty huge.
After having a bin going for almost two years I have learned a lot with our Dubia Roaches. I feed them scraps daily when the colony is large, pick out obvious shed exoskeletons, dead bugs, and decaying food every few days. I only need to do a deep clean every month or two, depending on season, size of the colony, etc... Overall it is a pretty dry environment so for the most part it does not get smelly. On occasion when I have gotten it too wet, or put in too much wet food at a time, or the rare times that I have die off then there becomes some odor but it is easy to resolve.
I had one bin, that is more, open and also has a larger surface area that is doing much better. Unfortunately my husband is not OK with an open bin, even when they are immature and extremely unlikely to crawl out.
Also I did try adding dry foods to help with drying it out, which helped some, but eventually I realized it was probably the combination of their waste and the undigestible material that was causing the real issue that wasn't likely to resolve itself, even if I get it dried out. Hence the going with the down and dirty method of manually rinsing and sorting. Though I think I'll just try using the lid to sort them and doing small scoops at a time. Last night, after a long day of sorting and dealing with poop/rotting smell most of the day, when I realized I still had one bin that needed to be cleaned I realized that the lid would work to filter them out. I was going with the whole bin, inverted over another tray, it was working but was slow going because the bin was quite full. I had added extra dry material earlier in the day, before realizing that a big part of the problem was probably the undigestible paper/wood based items, egg shells, and other such material, that probably just needed to be removed from the bin at this point.
Just curious, what do you do with the waste when you filter them out? And how often do you do that?
For the BSFL I was adding food, checking on them, documenting things, etc... daily when they were immature. At first they were in 4 separate bins. 1 was larger, but had two separate areas within it and the other two were quite a bit smaller. I knew as they matured they'd get much larger. When they arrived they were all in a pint sized takeout container that was quite full. I left about 1/4 of the BSFL in that container and added scraps. After about a week I realized that even when things were going well there was going to be a bit too much odor for my husband and kids to tolerate them being in the main part of our house (eventually) so I started thinking of how/where to move them. The main options were garage, our basement or the porch which although it is supposed to be 4 season porch, it is enclosed, and has a heat vent (all of which was done by prior owners of our home) it gets extremely cold (stays warmer than the garage but not by a lot). Our family room and my husband's work shop is in the basement, and honestly I was worried I'd forget about them down there, the garage is too cold so I decided to try the porch. At that point it was cold but not much below 30F most days so the porch was cool but not too cold. but over time I moved them into 2 as the main ones were doing pretty well. It got colder and I realized I needed to add insulation if I was going to keep them on the porch because it was getting so cold. As I experimented with insulation and realized that the larger bin did better since it could stay warm enough more easily, so I combined the 4 into 2 bins and kept a small amount separately to feed or bearded dragon out of each day. With the need for insulation, and combining into just 2 bins I finally had them staying warm enough but here was a bit of a moisture problem, especially in the smaller bin which and an open top. The problem was it needed to be covered in order to stay warm enough to keep them from going dormant. I figured out providing better ventilation to that smaller open bin. All was good for awhile so I went to checking them every few days. They were going inactive due to the cold, which also contributes to decay, odor, etc...so I was warming them up inside every few days. My larger bin, which was fine at first, was staying warm with a film of shipping insulation wrapped around it, even on the unheated porch. They were active and eating through stuff like crazy with minimal odor. Then it got quite a bit colder for almost a week. Then somehow the two bins flip flopped, the small one was doing fine, and the larger one got very stinky. Seemed dry enough and worms very active up top, but then dug down towards the bottom and realized there was a section that was getting too compact and too wet. And things have not quite leveled out since. But this colony size is pretty huge.
After having a bin going for almost two years I have learned a lot with our Dubia Roaches. I feed them scraps daily when the colony is large, pick out obvious shed exoskeletons, dead bugs, and decaying food every few days. I only need to do a deep clean every month or two, depending on season, size of the colony, etc... Overall it is a pretty dry environment so for the most part it does not get smelly. On occasion when I have gotten it too wet, or put in too much wet food at a time, or the rare times that I have die off then there becomes some odor but it is easy to resolve.
I had one bin, that is more, open and also has a larger surface area that is doing much better. Unfortunately my husband is not OK with an open bin, even when they are immature and extremely unlikely to crawl out.
